Not only was I not the only one who was thinking it, I have to believe it was where the whole idea came from, right? “Guys, how are we going to do this whole ‘nobody trusts anyone’ thing this week?”

“Dump ‘em on a beach! Somerhalder on a beach! It’s flashbacks right there! I miss LOST!”

It is indeed flashbacks, though Damon is way more interesting to watch than Boone, even when he’s doing nothing. There were a lot of people doing nothing this episode, and I kind of had no time for any of them – except inasmuch as we were in a totally new environment which made it amusing. (Sidebar: Did you hear them say it was a small island of Nova Scotia and then later say that college kids had spring-breaked there? HA.)

So what follows is kind of a weird ballet of not really liking anyone in the experience but going with it anyway. I was weirdly tickled to see that there were no “normals” on the beach/woods adventure – Jeremy’s the closest thing to human, mostly by virtue of not being able to take care of himself at all – but there is no pretense any more that any of these people are going to go back to being normal, even if they do find a cure.

Do you want them to, though? My bets for the end of the season- if in fact the cure turns out to be something real - are that Elena and Rebecca will choose life, and that Stefan will decide walking away from his pain is wrong, or something irritatingly noble like that. This, combined with whatever kind of sired-to-Klaus super-bloodline vampire Caroline is now, will give us enough to reset with, assuming Jeremy has an actual vocation and that Bonnie finally burns in effigy.

Oh. Did I say that out loud?

I am so tired of Bonnie, you guys. I’m so tired of her incessant cycle of being shocked by her powers, hurt by someone who manipulates her into doing some spell she shouldn’t, shocked by the inevitable damage that her “uncontrollably strong” powers wreak, and then angry that the forces of evil continue to be evil. Caroline, Elena, Damon and Stefan – hell, even Rebecca – they continually are surprised or delighted or infuriated by the shades of grey that infiltrate their world. In fact, Klaus learns this on a daily basis – he would love to be a monster and he just damn well can’t.

But Bonnie not only remains an insistent, inflexible witch, she remains sort of uninterested in what kind of layers this world might be able to add to her life. She’s willfully rigid at a time when everyone has basically said all rules are off. Is there any wonder why she’s the one who’s constantly being hurt or shocked or offended? Shouldn’t a young woman who works in the supernatural be a little more go-with-the flow?

Instead, her weird guilelessness makes her a sitting duck most of the time, and it’s not just that she’s physically vulnerable, it’s the reason why none of her friendships have endured: she’s at such a different place than the rest of them.

I guess it’s kind of what happens when you go away to university and your friend who’s stayed at home has just not only stayed true to her beliefs, but gotten really, really rigid about them in the meantime, such that you’re not just pulled apart but starting to see it as more of a wedge?

I’m mildly interested in what the cure will mean for Elena and Rebecca. I’m fascinated by what kind of a life Caroline now faces, and I like that Tyler’s evil side boils beneath the surface at any given time. But for Bonnie, I can’t imagine this development bringing anything else to the forefront in her except more resentment, more anger, more pouting. Is that too harsh? Am I really that wrong?